


Georgiana

by eloquated



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Mycroft Holmes Has Feelings, Mycroft is a good dad, Other, Sexual Experimentation, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Unplanned Pregnancy, all the family feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-09-19 12:58:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17002104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated
Summary: It had all sounded like such a good idea after a few too many glasses of gin. A chance to see how the heterosexual side lived.  What all the fuss was about.When an experiment has unexpected consequences, Mycroft has to accept that sometimes even the best laid plans must change.Nobody ever promised fatherhood would be easy.(Now with the sequel,Mother's Day)





	1. days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MrsMCrieff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsMCrieff/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies! This is something I've been wanting to write for ages now (and lets be honest, I'd much rather be inside writing than outside contending with the snow!
> 
> A little dad-Myc, because I've never seen it, and my plot bunnies were swarming and being demanding! (I'm pretty sure they were actually plot Tribbles, now that I think about it...)
> 
> Also, this is dedicated to the wonderful MrsMCrieff, and if you haven't checked out her fic One Night Stand, you're absolutely missing out! Reading that gave me the courage to actually put this plot tribble down on the page. 💚

**0.**

It had all sounded like such a good idea after a few too many glasses of gin. A chance to see how the other side lived.  

What all the fuss was about.  

Of course, they’d both tried before-- but those had been botched experiments in their teens, with other people.  And they’d both agreed that, for the sake of science and their own edification, that it only made sense to scrap the flawed data and try again.

They’d been best friends for nearly two years.  And, for the moment, Kate was between girlfriends.  What better time, they’d decided, than the present?

Her mouth had tasted of tangy gin and sweet vermouth, because she said the dry wasn’t to her liking; and if she was going to mix drinks (the only way, she’d decided with all a 21-year-olds worldliness) they were going to taste good.  

Mycroft wasn’t sure what she’d thought of him.  His body that seemed to drop size after size, but never looked any thinner to him in the mirror.  Or the not-invisible-enough ginger hair dusted across his chest and down his thighs, curling at his groin.

And he wasn’t entirely sure what he made of her.  But when her thighs had gripped around his hips, and her eyes-- how had he never realized how _green_ they were?-- caught his gaze in the near dark, he loved her for an instant.

In the warm moments between climax and sleep, they agreed that the experiment had been much more successful the second time.

But they had no desire to repeat it.  

That should have been the end of it.  

 

**32.**

The end of year finals were difficult for everyone.  The challenged felt crushed beneath the weight of the work, and the gifted under the yoke of their own perfectionism.  And so Mycroft hadn’t thought twice when Kate fell a little under the weather.

She wasn’t the only one.

Strained and sick seemed to be the dominant trait of the graduating year.  She was brilliant, but even Mycroft had been daunted by the reams of work their professors had chosen to gift them with.  A last chance to given their students a few sleepless nights before they went off into the world as dysfunctional, and exhausted, adults.

But Kate was seeing someone new, and wasn’t it her job to take care if she was unwell?  (It was the logic he repeated to himself, even while he took a break from his studying to bring her ginger ale and boxes of dry crackers.)

Neither of them counted days.  They were too busy counting word minimums, remaining essays and exam dates.

She was going to be a physicist, shattering the glass ceiling over her queer, female head.

He was going into the civil service, and between endless keyboard clicks and half cold cups of tea, Kate teased him about stepping onto the ladder of world domination.  Mycroft didn’t argue, save for when she called him 00-Holmes.

No, he’d corrected, he didn’t want to be Bond anymore.  It sounded like a good life choice if you wanted to get shot.

The other shoe dropped just after graduation, in the form of two slightly fuzzy blue lines.

“Mine?”  He asked, a sinking feeling settling in the hollow of his chest.

“Who else?”

 

**50.**

He’d never considered fatherhood.  This hadn’t been part of their plans, and Mycroft tried not to blame the collection of swift growing cells that would be his son or daughter.  He suggested adoption.

And been relieved when Kate had fixed him with a look that could slay at fifty paces. That was the end of that conversation.

He’d offered to marry her, to do the right thing by her.  And their child. But she’d told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was being irrational. After all, she’d summarized, he might be her best friend (and that had sounded like a benediction) but she was gay.

And so was he.

So clearly they could both do better.  No, they would find a way to sort this out, like adults.  When an experiment yielded unexpected results, the scientist in her had reminded him, you don’t throw out the work.  You look at it objectively and make space for new data.

The contract was three pages long, and both of them felt a weight lifted when their signatures had been scrawled across the bottom.  

And when relief came with nausea, she handed him a glass of ginger ale.

 

**120.**

Sherlock’s voice had been loud and strident, every syllable crashing through the dining room as it tried to reverberate off the dishes lining the table.  At fourteen he was opinionated and mercurial, his voice cracking in places as it tried to settle.

Mycroft had ruined his life, and how could he ever say he was the smart one?

Hadn’t he heard of protection?  And since when did he sleep with women?

Their parents had lapsed silent at their end of the table, and Mycroft couldn’t blame them.  But when Sherlock stormed from the room in a cloud of dire proclamations, Mycroft could see the too brightness at the corners of his eyes.

He didn’t want to hear about how exciting it all was, or how he was going to be an uncle.  It sounded hateful and awful. But more than that, it sounded like change.

Mycroft was his person, and he didn’t want to share.  His brother brought him books home from Cambridge, and now from London.  He send him letters, even when Sherlock almost never replied.

Sherlock hadn’t cried on his brother’s shoulder since he was small, but that night when Mycroft came to check on him (and would he do that again?  Or was that all for the new baby?) he wept out his frustration into his brother’s stupidly soft shirt.

All between reminders that he hated him, and he would never forgive him.  

And please don’t leave him behind.  Don’t forget him.

He still didn’t like it when he fell asleep with his head cradled on Mycroft’s chest.  But maybe his brother would be a good father.

After all, he’d always taken care of Sherlock.

 

**190.**

They fought over everything as the due date drew nearer.  Logically they both knew, and admitted, it was a distraction from the fear.  But in the vitriolic back-and-forth they struggled to find common ground.

Kate didn’t like his flat.  He didn’t like her new girlfriend (who didn’t like him).  

They both worked too much, and couldn’t see the irony of the accusations they threw at one another.  

He knew his family had some odd names, including his own, that was a tradition.  Kate agreed, as long as it could be shortened. But what that name could be? They couldn’t seem to see.

The week before Christmas, Mycroft moved to flat closer to her’s.  

And Kate decided that one child was enough, and broke things off with her charmingly free-spirited, but responsibility-allergic, girlfriend.  

Mycroft wasn’t sad to see her go.  He doubted it was healthy for his child to grow up exposed to quite that much patchouli incense.

Compromises were made, and their contract ballooned to nearly ten pages.

 

**210.**

Not a single book seemed to agree, and Mycroft wondered how blindingly stupid the human race could be.  He read descriptions and safety ratings on prams and cribs, and tried not to dwell too much on the horror stories that cropped up in the reviews.

He didn’t know how to be a father.  And she didn’t know how to be a mother. But sometimes he would rest his hands on the great, uncomfortable curve of her stomach and feel the thumping elbows and feet beneath his palms.

Everyone was certain they were having a boy.  Mycroft wasn’t sure, couldn’t guess. And as Christmas sped passed the new year, and continued on through Sherlock’s fifteenth birthday, Mycroft realized he didn’t care.

They felt healthy.  Strong. And for all his reading, Mycroft still didn’t know how to be a father.

He was fairly sure he had bigger things to worry about.  What did gender matter if their child could get their fingers pinched in the pram, or legs stuck through the bars of their crib?

Sleepless nights turned to restless days, and Mycroft knew Kate had the same running countdown in the back of her mind.  A few weeks that contracted down and down, rushing towards the end.

She’d probably be late, their doctor reminded, first time mothers often were.

Mycroft’s mother just smirked and disagreed.

He was more inclined to believe her; she had experience with how impatient Holmes babies could be.

 

**229.**

His mother was right.

The 19th of January was cold and miserably grey, but Mycroft could only see fragments of it through the picture window at the end of the hospital corridor.  The walls were painted an eggshell blue that was supposed to be calming, and it clashed with the faded, pea soup coloured floor.

Mycroft called in to work, and they sent their congratulations and wished him luck.  

Through that window he could see the sky brighten for day, hang on the zenith, and begin to darken again, all while they walked endless circuits up and down the corridor.

They talked about the election in Paraguay, and gravitational-wave detections in space.  Other couples made them strange looks, and their eyes flickered down to their hands, looking for rings.  

Mycroft deduced their histories and whispered his revelations to Kate when it got harder to walk through the contractions.  She laughed, and he felt some of the tightness in his chest ease.

Looking at the other couples pacing the maternity ward, Mycroft realized how lucky he was.

He was here with his friend.

 

**230.**

She was perfect.

Hours later, Kate slept and the sun lingered at the edge of the horizon, still trying to decide if it was going to rise for the day.  The hospital was as quiet as is ever was, but in the dark room with the heavy door closed to muffle the sound, Mycroft could pretend that the world outside had ceased to exist.

He’d never considered being a father, until the last eight months had changed everything.  

But here she was.  And so, he realized, was he.  

With reverent fingers he traced the edges of soft ginger curls, and breathed a laugh when she tried to work her arms free of the tight swaddling the nurses had wrapped her in.  

She snuffled and stirred, and for just a moment, Mycroft could see the flash of her blue-green eyes. The Holmes eyes, like he had.  And his brother, and his father. He watched the curl of her impossibly tiny fingers, each tipped with a fleck of fingernail, as she held onto the edge of her blanket.

His daughter.

His Georgiana.

“I don’t know how to be a father.  And you don’t know how to be a daughter.”  He whispered to the warmly bundled little girl in the crook of his elbow.  It wasn't instinct, and Mycroft didn't believe for an instant that it would all suddenly become easy.  It would be work, and time, and fumbling.  He had never felt less qualified to do anything.

“But I love you.  And the rest we’ll learn together.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live for feedback, and I've love to know what people think. Do you want more dad!Myc? Swing down into the comments and we'll chat!


	2. names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year turns the impossible into the normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies! It seemed that the overwhelming reaction was people wanting more dad-Mycroft! So with a bit of editing, and some re-naming (since this is officially longer than 230 Days) I'm back with more of Georgie and Myc!

**uncle.**

Sherlock hadn’t wanted to like his niece.  She was tiny (too tiny? It seemed impossible that a person could be that small), and curled up against his brother’s chest in a way that make Sherlock want to press in tight against his side.

It was _his_ place.  His brother loved _him_ , and it wasn’t fair!  He hadn’t asked for some niece to come and take his brother away.  Mycroft had been his first, and he didn’t want to share him.

Then she’d blinked up at him with her Holmes blue eyes, and Sherlock found himself carefully tracing a finger over one bright, copper curl.  

Georgiana reached for his hand, and missed.  

She had the tiniest fingers Sherlock had ever seen.  Pinpoint little nails, and every impossibly small bone connected by minute tendons and muscles.  

He didn’t want to like her.  

But when his parents reminded him that it was time to go home?  Sherlock realized that he didn’t really want to let her go.

After all, she was going to grow quickly-- even he knew that.  

And Sherlock didn’t want to miss anything.

 

**father.**

Exhaustion had taken on a fresh new definition.  It was how Mycroft felt after the third time his daughter had woken screaming.

It was he and Kate both juggling their fledgling careers, and their new parenthood.  It was somewhere after the fiftieth diaper, and the third load of laundry, and the millionth bottle.  

And it was Kate all but moving into his apartment, because trading off was the only way either of them got any sleep.  

Mycroft had never really considered how his parents had managed to contend with a seven-year-old, and a new baby.  And one miserable night, he’d called his mother, near tears, because his little girl wouldn’t stop crying.

What sort of a father would he be, if he couldn’t manage that one, very.. Very simple thing?

“You’re doing fine, Myc.  Every parent feels that way sometimes.”

“Even you?”  And his voice had cracked over the question, thick with doubt.

“Especially me.  You were just too young to remember.”

When Kate returned home that night, she found Mycroft asleep on the couch with Georgiana draped across his chest.  She didn’t want to wake them, but she did send a photo to Mummy Holmes.

Parenting, Mycroft began to learn, was a marathon.  And he just had to keep going.

 

**mother.**

This was never the life Kate had wanted.  It wasn’t what she had battered herself against the glass ceiling for, and given years of her life for.  

She hadn’t wanted domesticity, or imagined herself humming the Elements Song to her daughter while she tried to make dinner.  Or seen that life shared with her co-parent half asleep at the kitchen table.

Translating Arabic into French, and French into English, after another long and sleepless night.  

It seemed contradictory and impossible that you could love someone as much as she loved her daughter.  And still want to be anywhere else.

Her mother called it ‘a touch of the blues’, and promised she’d feel better soon.

Kate wanted her to be right.  

Of course she would feel that bond soon.  And everything would be fine.

Wonderful.

Just as it was supposed to be.  

She couldn’t be the only woman in the world that felt trapped by her own child.  It was just taking a little longer than usual. That was all. Just… A little longer.

 

**parent.**

Mycroft went to the office with a streak of baby cereal on his collar, and found that his colleagues were more amused than disgusted.  They quietly muttered their own stories to him between translations.

For the first time in his life, Mycroft Holmes had something in common with his colleagues.  

They had all foundered over the same ridiculous fastenings on baby onesies, and fumbled with the sticks tabs on nappies.  

They’d had the same exhaustion.  

They’d felt the same crippling responsibility towards their new families.  Looked at their salaries and wondered if it would be enough.

And they’d boggled over the same cost of baby things, wondering how such tiny things could be so expensive.  Or who decided what things were _essential_.  And why were they?

These men that he’d barely spoken to before, only to discover they shared his same fears.

They wondered why mothers ‘parented’, and fathers ‘babysat’.  

Within the year, Mycroft had been moved along to MI6, and the winding corridors of Vauxhall Cross.  

He missed them more than he’d thought he would.

 

**child.**

Georgiana Holmes learned to laugh, her face tilted up to her favourite uncle and giggling at his strange, contorted faces.  

He was trying to explain how muscles worked, but Mycroft noticed that his expression grew sillier and sillier the more she laughed.

She learned to crawl, inching across the second hand rug in her father’s living room.  

She eventually moved on from baby formula to cereal, and Sherlock dissolved into laughter when she splattered Mycroft’s face with sticky, mashed rice.  

Sherlock spent half his school breaks in London, and if he sometimes drove his brother mad?

More often, Mycroft was grateful for the extra hands.

And the child that Sherlock had never wanted, began to bring out the best in him.

“Is Kate coming back from Boston this week?”  His voice had echoed up from beneath the blanket his niece had thrown over his face.  It was her favourite new game, and her peals of baby giggles encouraged Sherlock to be just a little more patient.

“I don’t know… Maybe.”

“She’s missing a lot.”

Mycroft didn’t know what to say-- she was.

 

 **family**.

Mummy loves you.  
Mummy misses you.

Mummy will be home soon, and be good for Daddy.

Kate was off changing the world of science, and Mycroft could see the pattern unfolding.  She was happier, rushing off to Boston and Bern, her head filled with brilliant theories and plans for new experiments.

She would call every weekend, and every Wednesday night, and Mycroft taught their daughter to smile at the often fuzzy video on the cell phone screen.

“Your work is there, mine is here.  And Georgiana’s going to grow up knowing her mother is a great woman.”  Mycroft promised when their daughter had been set in her high chair with her dinner.

“But not a great mother.”  

“We can’t all be everything.  She’ll understand, Kate. You would have been miserable if you’d stayed.”

Maybe there had never been a better solution, he allowed himself to think.  And if Georgiana spent too much time with her grandparents, and he worked just a little too much?

They were doing their best.  

 

**birthday.**

Georgiana watched her first birthday from a place of pride on her uncle’s shoulders.

Her red hair in Mycroft’s best attempts at pigtails (and which his mother had fixed, thank goodness).  She beamed down at all of her guests. Her favourite people, all together, to see her.

There were new toys, and bright wrapping that she didn’t entirely understand.  A whole piece of cake, and she was allowed to bury her hands in the squishy icing and feel it squeeze up between her fingers.

When the guests had gone, there was only her and her father.

Like every night.

A few pages from a picture book about bees, a gift from her uncle.

This was her normal.

And at some point during the year, it had become Mycroft’s normal, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come swing into the comments and chat dad!Myc with me, I'm all of the feels for this! ❤️


End file.
